1. Technical Field
This invention pertains to distributed systems, and in particular to methods of managing the performance of distributed systems using accelerated data retrieval operations.
2. Description of Related Art
Many modern distributed systems perform distributed processing by employing hundreds or thousands of interconnected (e.g., networked) computing devices. In one aspect, such systems typically segment distributed processes into multiple tasks of execution. Performance of each task may then be facilitated by one or more of the interconnected computing devices.
One problem with such processing is that distributed processes are only able to complete once their slowest tasks of execution finish. Thus, distributed processes often encounter serious performance issues where certain tasks take a disproportionally long amount of time to complete. Many times, such “straggler” tasks are not the result of task complexity, but rather a resource-related issue, such as hardware performance limitations, hardware contention issues, hardware failure, etc. For example, a task may require an item of data (e.g., file) stored by a failing storage device. As a result, retrieving the item of data may require a significant amount of time, which adversely impacts the speed at which the task may be performed. Due to the aforementioned problem, distributed processes often require more time than necessary to complete. As a consequence, modern systems frequently exhibit poor performance levels over time.